Embalmed in Plastic Pollution: You, Me and the Synthetic Sea
by
Maria V. Eyles
Maria V. Eyles
This article also published (via a link to here) on the Facebook Page of Surfriders.org, San Luis Obispo, Rise Above Plastics
Survival of the Plastics: The Pollution of Pismo Beach, California
A seagull cocks his head toward a
treasure glinting in the sand. His dive off the pier railing, though noiseless,
alerts dozens of other gulls to materialize. They chase after him, circling, remonstrating
with angry caws. Swarmed to the sand, the seagull rallies: he shoots straight
up through the frenzied cyclone with the precious morsel gleaming from his
beak. Darting under the pier and weaving through the columns, he tries to elude his flying posse
.
The chase turns uglier. From my sandy perch,
I begin to fear for this seagull’s life as his fellow gulls attack him, honing
in scattershot, pecking furiously. What could be so delicious, so worth his life?
A strip of surfperch? A crab leg? An open clam, French fries, a carcass of some
kind?
Abruptly, he sheers off the pier again
and soars above me. The fought-over food fragment still dangles from his beak
and I gasp.
The food frenzy is not about food. It’s
about a plastic zip-lock sandwich bag half-filled with dirt.
Bask in the Trash
Pre-sunset and twilight are the times my
dog Raphael and I prefer to walk Pismo’s shoreline. Cool sea breezes and room
to walk are the advantages of strolling well after the crowds have left the
beach. One Sunday June evening after a huge weekend fiesta, I saw the revelers
had left the beach alright—they had left it a plastic and trash waste dump.
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| Pismo Beach near sunset April 2013 Plastic litter to the waterline; seagulls raiding the styrofoam from trash cans Photo by Maria V. Eyles |
Bad enough that the trash left a sordid
blight on Pismo Beach, this despite the many aware beach-goers who are normally
protective of our stunning environment.
Worse was the pain of seeing all the plastic
and Styrofoam litter next to the waterline where the night’s high tide would suck
it into the ocean. The thought of scenarios like the seagull’s above—of birds
eating Styrofoam cups and plastic bags; of fish, seals and otters swallowing
bottle caps or getting entangled in plastic netting, and dying miserably—all
this impelled me to attempt to clean as many non-biodegradable products as I could beyond sunset.
For this reason—the night’s tides
washing over the shore and the plastic waste —I knew I could not wait until the
beach clean-up crews arrived in the morning. My concern was (and is) the ocean.
So that first evening I picked up some abandoned pails and started filling them
with plastic debris along an 800 yard area of the shoreline. The filled sand
pails were very heavy, and I had to drag them. It got dark, so I came back the
next evening with a large garbage bag and a flashlight.
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| Raphael guards the last of many hauls that second evening. Pails could not fit in bins. |
Plastic removal from the strand is now
my mini-mission in the name of protecting our beautiful ocean from more damage.
For hundreds of years, as Jacques Cousteau lamented, the sea has been “the
universal sewer.” In addition, for five or six decades now, due to (all of) our
nonchalant trashing of beaches and coastlines, the seas have been reduced to
lethal plastic gumbo.
And so I collect. Even Raphael senses my
seriousness: either he runs ahead and shows me “plastic!” as I call out to him,
or he digs a cool burrow in the sand and relaxes patiently while his mum does
all the heavy lifting.
And heavy lifting it is. May through
September, each evening along a few hundred yards, I can fill three or more
tall kitchen bags so heavy they take a long time for me to drag up to the trash
cans one by one. I long for help because I’d rather be recycling the plastics
than stuffing them in our landfill, another nightmare-in-progress for future generations.
A quick list of plastic products I
scavenge will give you an idea of what we are up against along a very short
strip of Pismo Beach: plastic bottles, bottle caps, cups, lids, spoons, knives,
forks, baby bottles, sippy cups, pails, shovels, molds (for making figures and
castles), toys of all kinds, kites, netting, shoes, baby diapers, chairs, squeezy
juice containers, candy and cigarette box wrappers, balloons, boogie boards, thongs,
kiddy jewelry, flashlights, lighters, infinite plastic and Styrofoam containers,
bags of all sizes (This is how I knew the gull’s sandwich bag was full of dirt
or worse, because I pick up so many identical ones), and, finally, assorted
unmentionable products for adults, some used.
Due to the latter and to dirty baby
diapers, I now wear protective gloves as I clean up to prevent my coming down
with those strange viruses and rashes.
Unplanned Plastichood: Forever times Eternity
Plastic in paradise is a lethal hazard not
because the beach won’t look pretty for the next cavalcade of Pismo tourists. I
(and several like me) do not clean up the beach: we pre-clean the ocean, with
the prayer that it doesn’t suffocate and die in plastic stew.
The concern for all living creatures,
including humans, is dire. Statistics vary but they get worse each time you
look at them. Concerned scientists apparently agree that worldwide in one year,
industrialized nations produce enough plastic to make one to three freights
train to encircle the globe. The shocking photographs of the North Pacific
Gyre, a plastic island nearly as large as the Continental US, are
heart-breaking. That island was “built” from plastic trash that most often
“accidentally” finds its way out to sea.
For a local example, just last night I had to
chase a Styrofoam cup as it was being sucked out by the tide. It took me ten
minutes, and though it was well worth it, it would have taken the cup’s user
less than a minute to properly dispose of it.
Nearly all of this plastic is non-biodegradable. Plastic and Styrofoam take longer than forever to break down. In other words, they don’t. Ever.
Man-made Manna Equals Death
Unfortunately for our oceans (and rivers
and lakes), plastics are photodegradable but only to a degree. These plastics
actually never degrade completely: they become microscopic plastic dust
particles invisible to the naked eye. Two tragic facts about the plastic dust:
As a plastic bottle, for example, photo degrades, it not only emits toxins but
also attracts other toxins. Worse, the toxic plastic dust is often mistaken for
plankton—and actually outnumbers plankton in several areas of the Pacific. So
not only are our oceans and waterways being poisoned, so is all marine life,
whose food chain begins with plankton.
Tragically, the marine food chain is
ours too. The human food chain starts with plankton and grass. All life on earth is seriously threatened by
the plastic pile-up.
Even if the plastic microdust were not
enough to stamp out life, marine animals are being mercilessly slaughtered by
the presence of visible plastic. Referring to the North Pacific Gyre, or
Plastic Continent, Matt Ransford, a writer for Popular Science, states in his
article “Why Trashing the Oceans is More Dangerous than We Imagined”:
Turtles
mistake bags for jelly fish and birds mistake floating chips for prey. Animals
have been discovered starved to death because the entire contents of their
stomachs were plastic fragments.
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| Fish Caught in N. Pacific Gyre; stomach contents plastic Photo courtesy of Marcus Eriksen |
Those of us who would never dream of
harming a dog, cat or horse are unknowingly condemning perhaps dozens of marine
animals to a cruel death by tossing away one plastic bottle and bottle cap.
Animal lovers must be in the forefront in the fight for all of our survival.
One times 4 billion: worldwide plastic blight
Moreover, just the shards of one plastic
sand pail—made from “PETE,” #1 of 7 grades of plastic, will live forever. Not
only can these shards kill countless animals, they also leach antimony trioxide
into the liquids, skin, and lungs in contact with it. Forever!
The number of these dagger-like shards I
pick up in the summer on Pismo Beach is staggering, not to mention the plastic
netting the pail set came in, netting which invariably gets shoved into the
sand and abandoned there. When I see this, I have to wonder, who would want
their toddler playing with anything so dangerous, a toy that not only leaches
dangerous chemicals but also shatters with ease into little plastic
switchblades and needles? And imagine what these shiny fragments would do to an
adorable seal or sea otter’s belly.
Indeed, it takes seeing this
pernicious plastic and consciously thinking about its deadly nature to combat
the problem of our programmed bad habits.
 |
| Hawaii
Beach 1, Plastic Pile-Up, photo courtesy of Anna Cummins and 5gyres.org |
Thus, one moment of thinking, “I’ll just
leave this bottle (toy, candy wrapper, cup) in the sand this one time,”
times one billion similar thinkers on the shores of China, Australia, the US,
Canada, or Central and South America
equals one billion more plastic fragments. And if all billion thinkers think
this way 4 times a year, you have 4 billion more bottles/fragments per year
choking the life out of the oceans.
And when a dolphin mistakes that plastic
for food then washes up on your shore; or when a lab technician puts your fish dinner under a microscope,
you will know that the problem is neither remote nor invisible. It starts—and
it can end—with people like you and me.
Planetary Survival Means Serious Self-
and Other Education and Activism
I plead with you to familiarize yourself
with the plastic waste tragedy. We've buried our heads in the sand so long that
the sands of the Pacific coasts contain alarming amounts of polystyrene flakes
and other plastic fragments.
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| Hawaii Beach 3, Plastic Chip Sand (Photo Courtesy of Anna Cummins, 5gyres.org) |
The plastic problem affects all our
waterways, including lakes and rivers, not to mention the landfills. The
oceans, however, are extremely threatened. According to National Geographic News.com,
scientists recognize that our oceans produce at least 50% of the earth’s oxygen
supply. When they die, we die. Yet we can pull back from the brink of self-destruction.
One way is to form or join local
volunteer and/or community action groups if you are able. You and your family
and friends are the best places to start. Local chapters of Surfriders.org can
help you find ways to act and educate on ocean preservation. Those who live
inland can combat bad landfill practices as well as work to preserve our fresh
water supplies.
Moreover, as stewards of our planet, we
must all learn to take personal responsibility for the items we take onto a
beach or into nature all the time. We should be sure to pack plastics and other
trash out as carefully as we brought them in. Three nights ago, I saw a
family pack up all their plastic toys and bottles—then, as an afterthought,
their mom tossed the netting and a broken shovel into the sand and left. This
is what she taught her children by modeling this behavior.
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| Author's Photo of Plastic litter woven into the seaweed reflux after a February storm, months after crowds had left the beach. The plastic returned with the high waves. |
Let us instead teach others about the
beauty of the sea and its wildlife, and its vital importance to personal and
planetary life. Let us encourage our children to pack out their toys. That way
when today’s toddlers bring their kids or grandchildren to Pismo Beach or any
other beach, those yet unborn children actually might be able to swim, play and
surf in living waters—instead of in a tragic replica of a giant bounce-house
filled with toxic plastic debris and dust.
The dangers plastics pose to consumers
are rampant. In self-defense, it is a good idea to educate oneself on the
types. Baby bottles, for examples, are sometimes made from very noxious
plastics that disrupt hormones and can cause brain wave or developmental problems.
Manufacturers may not care about your baby, but they will listen seriously to
the pitter-patter of informed adult feet running away from their products. An
excellent list of common plastic types and their harmful possibilities is
contained in the article “Be Plastic Aware—Dangers” by the LFT Group (see
References below).
I beg the people of San Luis Obispo County
and the City of Pismo Beach to become a part of the solution to toxic plastic
waste that is killing our ocean.
Please consider volunteering to help
with beach and ocean clean-ups, for a few random people cannot do this alone.
There is too much trash, and some late afternoons we plastic grabbers must be
elsewhere. Dedicated evening ocean clean-up should never stop because of that.
I make the following recommendations to
the City of Pismo Beach:
The city has signs regarding doggy doo
clean up and heavy fines for violators.Yet, unbagged doggy doo constitutes less
than 4% of my pickings. Those signs must be working! So, now. Where are the
signs for plastic bottles, Styrofoam cups, seventeen layers of plastics type
baby diapers, and blankets’ full of meal containers and papers? Signs don’t need to start off sounding threatening.
But if they can direct attention to the plastic problem, that would truly help.
In fairness, most people need to become aware of a problem before they become
motivated to fix it.
Encourage ocean preservationist
organizations to have talks and displays along the boardwalk.
Add more and larger trash bins, maybe in
seaside pastels, that are more easily accessible to all beach-goers, including
those closer to the water.
Consider adding a few more recycle bins
on the beach itself.
Secure existing trash bins so that the shorebirds
cannot shred and scatter the Styrofoam food containers inside them. Conscientious people usually toss their
containers into the trash cans. But what good does that do when the birds
ravage them? These Styrofoam confetti bits scatter all over the beach and the
strand, and are hard to see and sift out. If no one picks them up again, they
will remain there in one form or another—yes—forever.
To go a bit further, might the city
think about eliminating Styrofoam in restaurants or as packaging containers?
Styrofoam contains one of the worst toxins, styrene, which is linked to cancers
and a host of other medical problems. It’s a hard one, but it’s doable—after
all, the county has successfully eliminated plastic shopping bags in stores.
Many California cities and several counties have already eliminated Styrofoam
packaging, including Laguna Beach and Santa Cruz.
“People protect what they love,” said
Cousteau. Do you love the beach? The ocean? Kayaking? Marine animals? Fishing? Making bonfires? Surfing? The sound of the
waves? Show your love! Come out and pick up some bottles. Join a beach clean-up
group. Pester your city councils. Above all, self-educate and spread the word.
Awareness of plastic dangers could be as
critical as your next breath. It definitely was for that poor seagull’s.
“It is a curious situation that
the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the
activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister
way, will continue to exist: the threat is rather to life itself.” –Rachel
Carson
References
Coursey, Blair.
“Plastic Waste—More Dangerous than Global Warming,” Ethical Corporation’s
Magazine and Business Intelligence Resources. http://www.ethicalcorp.com/content/plastic-waste-%E2%80%93-more-dangerous-global-warming
LFT Group. “Be Plastic Aware—Dangers.” http://www.lft-group.com/journal/2008/12/2/be-plastic-aware-dangers.html
Learn, Scott. “Seaside
Activist Tracks Waves of ‘Microplastic’ Washed onto Oregon Beaches,” The
Oregonian. www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2012/09/seaside_activist_tracks_waves.html
Ransford, Matt. “Why
Trashing the Oceans is More Dangerous than We Imagined,” Popular Science. http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2008-04/why-trashing-oceans-more-dangerous-we-imagined
Roach,
John. “Source of Half Earth’s Oxygen Gets Little Credit,” National Geographic
News. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0607_040607_phytoplankton.html
PS TO MY READERS: The Comment function does not seem to work, so please feel free to contact me at my email, marinastar805@gmail.com
All civilized comments will be answered. Thanks for reading!
